Woke up during the night and had a hard time getting back to sleep, finally did, then slept through past 9:30. After breakfast, Hubby went out and worked on the van to find the problem, and concluded it was the alternator. I was a bit concerned that it might be too late to find a shop that could do the job so late, but we were planning on leaving tomorrow so we didn’t really have much of a choice. I jumped in the van and headed down to Shippensburg, the nearest town, about 10 miles away. Once I got there, and had a great signal, I googled auto repair and got a long list. The first review was for a Gulf station, and the reviews were excellent, so I headed there, less than a mile away. Pulled in, asked if they had a mechanic on duty, rec’d the response YES, and I headed in to talk with him. What a fantastic place! Really clean, very nice, and they had an open bay so in it went! I headed into the waiting room and started taking care of business, and before I knew it, the van was parked outside the window in front of me! It took barely an hour to get the job done, and was very reasonably priced as well. Had a nice chat with the other woman in the waiting room, then I ended up hanging around another 30-45 minutes just to get more work done. Finally headed back to the camp, arriving about 3:30, much earlier than either of us had expected, but thrilled that we could leave on schedule tomorrow. Started putting stuff away, cleaned up the yard where the horses have been grazing, and generally tidied up in preparation for our departure. Need to get out early early tomorrow, a long day with several stops along the way, including a place to get our propane tanks recertified. Though the guy at Agway had said it would take two weeks for a fee (so why don’t you buy a new tank from us…?), the woman at Augusta Petroleum in Staunton said they could do it immediately and for free! Looking forward to finding out if that’s true! Relaxed for the evening, ready to get up early.

Bad weather prevented us from riding today, so we took the opportunity to rest a little, particularly since I can’t get much work done with a cell signal. Did some writing on the blog, to be uploaded at our first opportunity.

With no cell phone signal, and lots of work piling up, I set out to find a cell phone signal good enough to connect with the internet using my aircard. My first attempt was to go down to another camping area that one of the rangers had mentioned might have a signal and was another option to where we could camp with the horses. Unfortunately, it was another 10 miles north, and through many windy, twisty roads, and lower in elevation than we were, and, unfortunately, there was no more of a cell signal there either. Then I headed back toward camp, bypassing it to go a little higher, thinking higher altitude might help, once I crested the mountain. That didn’t help, and then the road back downhill kept going further and further into the valley, with no place to turn around, so I went miles MORE out of the way in vain. Finally found a place to turn around, headed back to camp to drop off the horse trailer so I didn’t get caught not being able to turn around again, then headed off AGAIN, this time south to the main highway, finally getting a signal just before reaching Route 30. I ducked into the state park parking lot and spent more than an hour working, emailing, etc. before finally heading back to camp, feeling like most of the day was wasted driving around. At least I got done what needed to be done!

Woke up to a changed forecast, now 70% rain, which it started to do as we were getting up. It didn’t start to let up until nearly 2:00, and the sun didn’t come out until 3:00, so it was too late to go for a ride, though I did take the horses for a little walk and let them graze on some fresh grass for awhile. We decided a rest day was a good idea anyway, as we have a very long drive tomorrow and need to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.

Since we didn’t have a cell phone or internet signal here, and I had to run into town to the post office and grocery store anyway, I found a wi-fi signal at Friendly’s and did some computer work. Unfortunately, what started out as an effort to get a few simple confirmations of my planned route turned into a nightmare. Everywhere I called it was No, No, No! Even publicly designated Pa Game Land prohibited overnight camping of any kind! I never heard of such a thing! Anyway, I ended up spending hours there trying to solve the problem, and in the end, didn’t really solve it, except to find one tiny spot along the side of a highway that didn’t have any trails. Time to rethink the whole thing, so I came back to camp frustrated that it was now too late to ride, and we had more logistics problems than we had before I went to town. After considerable discussion, and a slew of alternatives, we finally settled on driving straight through to the Michaux State Forest (if it could be confirmed, though all indications are they welcome horse camping-I even had previously downloaded a brochure about it), which is just a little west of Gettysburg. There are no fees, though no facilities, but knowing that, we can arrive prepared. Too late to ride, so we just settled in, though I had several conversations with the two hunters that keep coming back, Nick and Dominic. Dominic even brought a couple of ladies who live nearby and have horses to visit with us, so we had a nice chat for a while. He also gave us some apples, a loaf of hefty bread, which we discovered later with soup was a nic sun-dried tomato bread, and a bag of nice Italian rolls, very thoughtful of them. Forecast calls for just a 20-30 percent chance of rain for tomorrow, hope it doesn’t, I’d sure like to get at least ONE ride in while we’re here!